Ignite: from within the confines

Once upon a 2020, when the virus was still new and intimidating, when the governments of the world thought the best way to contain the disaster was to confine human beings within their homes, Deepa Gopal came up with the idea of an online exhibition titled ‘Ignite: from within the confines’. She invited a few artists and paired each with a (in my case, aspiring) poet. The mandate was to work together and come up with art and poetry that spoke about the world, and what it was to think, feel, imagine and create in those torrid times.

To say it was a time of chaos and confusion is an understatement. Shaken and homebound as we were, most of us sat glued to news channels that were merciless in what they showed. News of people dying of disease and of dread, of migrant workers fleeing cities only to get run down by trains – or get hosed down with disinfectants at borders – competed with news of institutional apathy towards rape, lynching and murder. It was impossible to not get affected.

At a personal level, I was on the brink of an implosion. Menopause was ravaging my mind and body, triggering the autoimmune disorder which was already waiting in the wings. Though, at that point, I was clueless about the extent to which it was going to change the way I functioned. Or even the way I thought, for that matter. What I remember most from that time is the horror and helplessness I felt as I watched the skin on my fingertips break as if by its own volition, as it it were an entity separate from me, the rest of my body. For someone who found sanity in working with her hands, whether cooking, gardening, sewing, mosaicing or working with clay, being unable to even comb her own hair was hell.

We live in a lovely little gated community designed for easy social interactions, and that was perhaps the biggest blessing we could have asked for. Children could still play, and adults could still go about life (albeit with an impending sense of doom) without the restrictions that most of the world outside had to live with. Yes, some of us banged dishes and lit diyas to drive away the virus. Yes, I had my taste of cold shoulder for not joining in. Despite all that, I could not have asked for a better place to be in while the pandemic was raging.

Yamini Mohan, the artist I was paired with, wields her charcoal pencil with the grace of a dancer, creating lines that are equal parts fluid, powerful and disturbing. They were enough to inspire even the most inept writer, yet putting word after word proved to be a struggle at that point.

In retrospect though, Ignite was the catharsis I needed. It allowed me to weep and to scream – into the vast silence of the written word. The only place kind enough to hold me close, and rock me to sleep.

Deepa, I can’t thank you enough.

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Here’s the link to the site: https://ignitefromwithintheconfines.blogspot.com

And here’s the link to my humble attempt: https://ignitefromwithintheconfines.blogspot.com/2020/11/poet-profile-mini-s-menon.html?m=1